NT Wright and Theosis

Wright gave some lectures in Chicago at the end of last month for InterVarsity’s Human Flourishing conference (27-31 Dec 08). In his second talk about Col 1.27 ‘the hope of glory, Christ in you’. In it he talks about glory from a Jewish perspective as 1) the presence of God in the Temple which subsequently departed and 2) the hope of human restoration as described in Qumran as ‘all the glory of Adam’. Then he turned to the Pauline hope of glorification where the presence of God is restored to humanity such that they share in his life. He calls this process of humansreaching their fullness through the presence of God theosis and divinisation two or three times over the course of the talk.

He and I haven’t talked about that aspect of my research in a while, but regular readers here will have noted my previous interest in glory as an primary way into discussions of theosis. I suppose a little of that has rubbed off on the bishop. Since he’s forgotten more than I’ll ever know, this will probably be one of the only places that I’ll see my research reflected in his writing/speaking.